Posted on 06/10/2007 5:33:17 AM PDT by rellimpank
It's part of a father's proper role -- political correctness urges us to say "parent," but a mother's tendency toward uncritical support can be a problem, here -- to sit down for a chat with the child as he or she prepares to depart primary school and choose a course of study.
By this time, the young person's head will likely be filled with accounts of successful athletes, musicians, actors and runway spokesmodels who have earned vast fortunes after thumbing their noses at traditional education. A sober analysis of just how few -- out of the millions who aspire -- even earn a living in those fields is called for. Even in that rare "success story," how often does the career end by age 30, and where do you go from there?
Also to be dealt with at this point, generally, is the assertion that cousin Bob is making a higher
(Excerpt) Read more at lvrj.com ...
At conventional (ie, legit) wages, there is no shortage of people willing to do construction work, especially at union rates.
Most people think that jobs like mechanics’, carpenters’, plumbers’, etc — pay squat.
You’re oh-so-wrong if you think this.
At legit wage rates (non-union), these are well-paying jobs. We’re talking $25/hour and up.
At union rates, they’re fantastic paying jobs. Think $35/hour and up, especially on overtime jobs. On union job sites here in Nevada, the people you see standing in traffic, flagging traffic to go around construction? They’re being paid $25 and up. To wave a little flag in traffic.
There’s NO shortage of people willing to be paid $25/hour to wave a little flag on road construction sites. None.
That’s why the illegals moved into the construction industry so quickly during the recent housing boom: subs (ie, sub-contractor) companies found that they could get lots of contracts with generals (ie, general contractors) on these large housing developments by employing illegals and undercutting *all* the legit competition on blind price bids where there was no requirement for verifying the employment of people by the subs.
If employers are forced to verify employment eligibility, forced to pay legit wages and taxes, penalized for employing illegals, etc — they price differential for employing suddenly legit former illegals simply vanishes. If the illegals made legit by this proposed legislation are then unionized, they’re not going to be paid minimum wage, I can assure you.
This is why I don’t get why the business community is thinking they’re going to get something wonderful out of this comprehensive immigration “reform” — unless it will do nothing to stem the flow of illegals, which it obviously wouldn’t. The illegals who become legal suddenly will find themselves out of work just as low-skilled US workers have been displaced by illegals. This blows a huge hole in the argument(s) by the business community that this legislation “regularizes” illegals and makes them legit. If it did, then business employment costs would go up very quickly, which is exactly what these business don’t want.
So you and I are in high agreement that the legislation won’t do anything to cure illegals coming in. What I’m saying is that the claims by the business community about the results of the legislation and the business effects of the results of the legislation are at variance, and the variance isn’t one beneficial to those business employing illegals.
You’re never going to see the pansy politicians in DC use force to drive out the illegals. Ain’t gonna happen. They lack the spine and testicular fortitude to enforce our borders, which would be necessary before you start rounding up people and shipping them back, so they don’t just turn around and come right back in.
You’re going to need a physical barrier first. Then you’re going to have to round up some of them (ala Eisenhower’s tactics) to set an example, and then come down on employers with airtight employment eligibility verification, with safe harbor for employers to fire anyone who gets a SSA “variance” letter or to not hire anyone who has ID problems come back from a government ID check. Once you have the employers on the hook for verifying ID’s, then the illegal ID mills dry up, the ID thefts dry up, the illegals find they have no ID documents to either get jobs or get social services, and they have no economic base of support. They’re going to go home (or somewhere else), rather than starve here.
Bookmarked
Darn near an entire generation of American teenagers will leave their adolescent day care facilities high schools with no marketable skills, no work ethic, and no job experience.
We will be paying for this for generations.
What amazes me more is that construction trades have been solid sources of union recruitment and union representation. The building trades make good money and the unions have, in the past, unionized most all of the building trades. Look no further than the following unions for examples:
- IBEW - Int’l Brotherhood of Electrical Workers
- Carpenters
- UA (United Ass’n of Plumbers and Pipefitters)
- Steel Workers
The list goes on.
Go to some of the unions’ web sites.
http://www.ibew.org/
http://www.ua.org/
NB how on their front page, they OPPOSE the Senate immigration bill.
Did you hear ANYTHING about trade unions opposing this monstrosity in the press? Nope. Neither did I.
Who do these trade unions usually support in elections? Democrats.
So why are the Democrats pissing on their union financial base? I don’t know. The more you peel back the layers on this immigration bill and the politics/tactics surrounding it, the more it stinks.
I’m not a union flack. Hardly. Most people who know me know that I’m not a friend of unions. However, I do know the facts of the building trades and trade unions, I do know something of the wages paid on union construction sites (and those wages are damn good, putting to lie Bush’s pablum that the illegals are “doing jobs Americans won’t do), and it wasn’t until late this week I decided to start sniffing around and seeing what the trade unions thought of this bill.
What I found (that the unions are vehemently opposed and telling their members to call their Senators and oppose the bill) and the silence of the press and the DNC (save for Dorgan, D-ND) on the union position really surprises me.
That is the way it was when I graduated HS 30 years ago.
Suprynowicz sounds so Polish to me:)
I forgot to add another example of jobs that Americans WILL do. It is literally right in my neighborhood here in Nevada.
Here in Nevada, we produce the majority of gold that is mined in the US. Most people who have never been around a mine site aren’t familiar with the mining regs for safety, etc. There is a whole federal agency charged with mine safety — MSHA - Mine Safety and Health Administration, within the Dep’t of Labor.
Mines don’t employ illegals. Want to know why? Because their records are audited and discrepancies within their employment docs cause real civil fines. Illegals are also used to taking shortcuts of all manners, and any miner who takes safety shortcuts is quickly fired or hazed off the job site, because causing “lost time” accidents means that the entire crew loses their safety bonus (worth thousands to over $10K/year) at the end of the year.
The mines (even the non-union mines) pay $18/hour to START, doing nothing more challenging than driving a haul-pak (huge dump truck) around in circles. That’s it. $18/hour, plus bennies (medical/401(k), perhaps profit sharing, plus educational bonuses) and they can get all manner of people driving those trucks. Kids right out of high school, college grads, housewives, professional miners, etc.
What is the requirement? A clean driving record, pass a drug test, clean documentation. And they’re going to verify all of it, because if they don’t, MSHA very well might catch the problems.
People operating a loader or shovel make $25/hour on up. Mechanics are being paid $25/hour on up. Again, this is from a local mine here, which is not unionized.
Underground mining is now typically done by professional miners working for contract companies specializing in underground mining and underground mine engineering. They make very tidy salaries, with experienced miners working for these outfits making upwards of $90K/year, plus bennies.
You can’t show me a shortage of applicants for those jobs at those wages.
Now, here is the catch: Even contractors working on a mine site MUST have MSHA certification. Even if you’re doing something really low-level — like changing tires, or you’re doing basic construction work, welding, etc. You have to have your MSHA card/training, and your docs must be clean. This closes the “sub-contractor” or “contractor” loopholes that have depressed wages in construction.
There ya go. Americans will do these jobs, and the fact that the mines can find people to do some very dirty, hard jobs (you wouldn’t believe the dust, smoke, noise and heat on mining sites) without problem. And illegals aren’t undercutting the salaries because the docs are checked and cross-checked.
With all due respect - and IMO you are due a lot - the above statement says a lot. You don't "get it" for the simple reason that you are allowing yourself to dabble in a little wishful thinking. What the business community gets out of it is they know they will still be able to get Mexican workers at much less than American workers are willing to work and since they are made legal they won't have to worry about the people getting fed up and forcing the politicians to start packing up their cheap Mexican labor force and sending them back home. The benefit to them is they know the Mexicans will continue to work for a cheaper wage. At least give the Mexicans credit for enough sense to know where their advantage truly is - they are willing to do the same work for much less. Don't expect them to become so stupid that they immediately start asking for the same wages. They are fully aware the reason they are being hired is not because these employers really love Mexicans. The benefit of any amnesty to both employers and illegals is it continues to allow them to be in this country (now legally where nothing can be done) and continue to undercut American wages by doing the job for less.
I truly believe you are fooling yourself here although I can't say I blame you much.
The reason all of a sudden that this amnesty bill is such a priority is that the politicians and big business abusers of illegal immigration started to get a sniff of the direction the wind is blowing. The reason they all of a sudden want amnesty is they can hear the people heading to the point of forcing them to put the illegals o-u-t.
It is not the presence of illegals that drive wages down, it is the presence of Mexicans for the simple reason that they are more than willing to work for much less. Likely they always will assuming Mexico doesn't clean up their own economic situation.
Not only do I believe we need to remove illegals, we also need to greatly curb the amount of legal immigration we allow in from Mexico to really fix this problem.
I'm not holding my breath on either.
It would boggle the minds of Congress if they did really constructive surveys on just how many ag jobs are possibly held by illegals in this country. They won’t, of course.
But the upshot here is that the number of illegals employed in ag wouldn’t add up to 1 million.
There are less than 2 million farm owners in the US now. Most farms in the US make very little money (the USDA considers anyone who received $1000 or more in ag production revenue to be a ‘farmer’, so the threshold to enter the stats is really quite low) and employ no one other than the farm owners.
Most of the midwest farms (corn/beans/wheat) are highly mechanized, with machines doing the vast majority of the work.
The majority of the US ag jobs held by illegals or even legit temporary workers are in some vegetable and fruit crops, where harvests are still done with a large manual labor component.
So clearly, the rest of the “12 million” (if we collectively believe the number is that low) aren’t in ag. They’re doing something else.
Absolutely.
Just imagine how productive an entire generation of young adults are going to be who have never before held a job.
Just say NO to Amnesty!! Keep calling!! It’s NOT OVER!!
U.S. Senate switchboard: (202) 224-3121
U.S. House switchboard: (202) 225-3121
White House comments: (202) 456-1111
Find your House Rep.: http://www.house.gov/writerep
Find your US Senators: http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm
Easy, Kozak!
I should have written "some on FR would say it's free market. I've seen the posts -- "lost your job?" "Job's been offshored?" "Tough - it's the free market at work -- open a business, make your own job, retrain for the Next Big Thing".
At age 49 I returned to school for 3 years of retraining for a new career. (Just how many lifetimes do I get, anyway).
I'm in absolute agreement with the article.
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